Citigroup has appointed its former head of markets in Australia as head of securities services in Europe, making him the second senior executive at the bank to move from the country to Europe in a matter of weeks.

Chris Cox, most recently head of global markets in Australia, will now run securities services for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, leading both the investor services and the direct custody and clearing businesses.

He will be based in London and report to Okan Pekin, global head of investor services at Citi, Lee Waite, global head of direct custody and clearing, and Leo Arduini, head of markets in Emea.

Cox takes up the role at a time when Citi is integrating its securities services group more closely with its investment bank in a bid to cross-sell products and bring down costs.

Pekin said: "We have used the first few months of the year to integrate the business lines and integrate the management team. We believe that investors would prefer fewer touch points and deeper engagement with the banks that they deal with and this integration provides that.”

The integrated business recorded a huge win in May when it was chosen to provide custody and securities lending services to Norges Bank Investment Management, one of the world’s largest investors with a global portfolio worth some $850 billion.

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Other recent wins include a mandate from East Capital to provide fund services for its recently-launched China A-shares fund and a mandate to support the launch of Nedgroup's new Irish-domiciled Ucits fund.

Pekin said: “For investor services, I see our business momentum strengthening into the second half of the year. The first half was positive already."

Cox joined Citi in 1991, initially working in London. He moved to Asia in 1997 to lead medium-term note trading for the region, returning to London in 2000, where he rose to become head of international rate structuring and MTNs. In 2008, Cox moved again to run the bank’s fixed income, currencies and commodities business in Australia, and assumed the role of head of global markets in Australia in 2012.

Citi earlier this year combined its prime finance, futures and over-the-counter clearing, global custody, global fund services and agency securities lending businesses into a single investor services group as part of a broader reorganisation of the bank’s capital markets and securities services group.